[Illustration:  THE SCENE OF THE DIGGING OPERATIONS.]

This experiment was undertaken by Ruskin as a practical piece of serviceable manual labour, for Ruskin taught in his lectures that the Fine Arts required, as a necessary condition of their perfection, a happy country life with manual labour as an equally necessary part of a completely healthy and rounded human existence, and in this experiment he practised what he preached.  The experiment caused no little stir in Oxford, and even the London newspapers had their gibe at the “Amateur Navvies of Oxford”; to walk over to Hinksey and laugh at the diggers was a fashionable afternoon amusement.

The “Hinksey diggings,” as they were humorously called, were taken up with an enthusiasm which burned so fiercely that it soon expended itself, and its last flickering embers were soon extinguished by the ironic chaff and banter to which these gilded youths were subjected.

The owner of the estate sent his surveyor to report the condition of the road as they had left it, and it is said that in his report he wrote:  “The young men have done no mischief to speak of.”

The River Thames, over which we now crossed, is known in Oxford as the “Isis,” the name of an Egyptian goddess—­though in reality only an abbreviated form of the Latin name Tamesis.  As the Thames here forms the boundary of Oxfordshire, we were in Berkshire immediately we crossed the bridge.  We followed the course of the river until we reached Kennington, where it divides and encloses an island named the Rose Isle, a favourite resort of boating parties from Oxford and elsewhere.  It was quite a lovely neighbourhood, and we had a nice walk through Bagley Woods, to the pretty village of Sunningwell, where we again heard of Roger Bacon, for he occasionally used the church tower there for his astronomical and astrological observations.  He must have been an enormously clever man, and on that account was known as an alchemist and a sorcerer; he was credited with the invention of gunpowder, and the air-pump, and with being acquainted with the principle of the telescope.  In the time of Queen Mary, Dr. Jewel was the rector of Sunningwell, but had to vacate it to escape persecution; while in the time of the Civil War Dr. Samuel Fell, then Dean of Christ Church, and father of John Fell, was rector.  He died from shock in 1649 when told the news that his old master, King Charles, had been executed.  He was succeeded as Dean by John Fell, his son.

[Illustration:  SUNNINGWELL CHURCH.]

[Illustration:  SUNNINGWELL, BISHOP JEWELL’S PORCH.]

[Illustration:  ABBEY GATE, ABINGDON, SHOWING ALL THAT NOW REMAINS OF THE ABBEY.]